if-then-else

We all tend to subconsciously pick up ideas and thought processes of others that we resonate with, and then apply them to other areas of our lives. Growing up in an average Indian household, one of the top priorities is risk mitigation. We are constantly thinking/planning about the future, such as getting a stable job, investing in a variety of assets, and ensuring that our children marry into proper families. Looking back, I also picked up this worry about the future. Without any clear goals for myself, I did the only thing I could think of: give myself as many options as possible to choose from, so that when the time came, I would know what to pick. I can think of various examples of this from my childhood: Even my parents forced me to take CSC classes and Hindi tuition. In college, when working on projects, I chose different tech stacks for each semester so that I'd gain exposure on different verticals in CS.

I think it's important to give yourself as many options as possible, and especially to expose yourself to different things, as it reduces the intimidation factor when facing a similar challenge. We tend to feel anxious only when there are a lot of variables involved and we're not sure how to deal with the situation. But if we already have that exposure, then it's just a matter of letting things play out. For example, having some programming exposure from CSC classes helped me pick up things much faster in my school, and this also prompted me to choose computer science as my major in college, which subsequently helped me land my current job.

But, having had this habit of equipping myself with as much knowledge as possible, I'm finding myself at cross-roads starting out my adulthood, where I'm not having enough time to do all things that I want. So naturally, options that I usually give myself is getting reduced, which means I'm more likely to run into something, which I'm not entirely in control of. But I'm embracing this mentality as well to face some unknown discomfort, as the same path would likely throw up some surprises as well and overcoming the challenges in such a path gives much more joy than treading on a boring, but comfortable life.

This week also marks the 12th anniversary of one of my all time favorite shows - Person of Interest. Knew this series from this mashup. I vividly remember, catching up couple of episodes everyday during COVID days and it gave such a satisfying feeling before going to sleep. Used to be obsessed with that series, that I spent a few extra hours in my college project to theme it to reflect the series, but had to remove few things since it didn't made sense. The series had some interesting screenplay for few episodes. If-then-else is one of the best hours of television. I'll end this blog with quote from the episode :

Each possible move [in chess] represents a different game… By the second move, there are 72,084 possible games. By the third, 9 million. By the fourth there are more possible games of chess than there are atoms in the universe. No one could possibly predict them all, even you.
Which means that that first move can be terrifying. It’s the furthest point from the end of the game, there’s a virtually infinite sea of possibilities between you and the other side……
But it also means that if you make a mistake, there’s a nearly infinite amount of ways to fix it. So you should simply relax and play.
- Harold Finch, Person of Interest

Some of us tend to overthink certain decisions and miss out on opportunities. My school of thought is when deliberating on something, with the knowledge you have and risks you can afford to take, make a definite decision. Even if it ends up as a bad decision, we can always learn from it and chose the next moves to take better decisions in future.

That's all for this week. Next week's post may be published earlier or later than usual because of the long weekend.👋